Christmas Tree Topper
So I saw this thing on pinterest. I was skeptical, I was intrigued.
I clicked on the link and headed over to HappinessIsHomemade and read the excellent tutorial and decided to give it a try.
After gathering the supplies, and trying it out, I was astounded to find….
That it looked AWESOME.
This is a super quick and super easy DIY. I highly recommend. I’ve also seen where they have made them out of book pages folded into strips (The strips definitely need to be sturdy so several layers thick). I still need to make a topper for the tree in the Piano Room. I’m thinking pink glitter paper!
What Christmas projects have you been working on?
Sarah
Vintage Lace Christmas Tree Skirt
Stefan and I went down to Houston for Thanksgiving to visit my parents and sister. Here is the required “on our way” selfie from the Airport. I think the “on our way” selfie is the only real reason my parents have iphones. Here we are on our way!
While we were in Houston, we got to meet my parent’s darling kitten Lucy. Don’t mind the blury Stefan, the photo is about Lucy.
Fun Fact: Lucy is named after Lucille Ball. She must be called with a Spanish accent a-la-Ricky Ricardo “Luuuuuucy!!”
My parents also have a goofy little Beagle named Bella. She helped us with the Vintage Lace Christmas Tree Skirt that I’m going to tell you about.
First we cut out a circle in the backing fabric. The Christmas Tree Skirts were just about 55″ in diameter. We cut out circles from Damask tablecloths that my mom had lying around…you know, cause everyone has damask tablecloths lying around.
Just look at that cute craft room!
We also had lying around, this box full of lace squares….
Now, who exactly has squares of lace and damask tablecloths just lying around. Well, we do. This was an unfinished project from about 20 years ago. My mom and Grammy would plan these fun projects, we can did our projects thanks to short terms loans can benefit small businesses, was a amazing opportunity.
These lace squares were one of their projects. The idea was to make a tablecloth out of squares of damask tablecloths with antique lace tacked on. Now there are a few problems with this grand plan,
1. The sheer amount of time needed to tack lace onto squares of fabric is astounding. And, of course, Mom and Gram weren’t going to go half-way with it. Oh no, no checkerboard pattern with blank squares, no 3 pieces of lace per square, and certainly no 42 inch round tablecloth for them. It had to be huge, like 100″ x 100″ I’m sure so it would have a nice drape on Gram’s 52″ round table. Which brings us to the next problem.
2. Who would eat on a tablecloth that took 20 years to make? Who would let anyone eat on a tablecloth of that intensity? Let alone, who would think it was a good idea to start a project to make an impossibly fussy, non-washable tablecloth anyways? Mom and Gram that’s who. That’s not to say 6 year old Sarah didn’t have some part of this saga. There is, in a jar in my house squares with copious amounts of glue and little scraps of lace that 6 year old me made. But guess what, 6 year old Sarah got farther than Mom and Gram did!
So 20 years ago, Mom and Gram started this project. It was a multi-trip project that they worked on off and on for a couple years. Eventually it got waylaid by other projects but it did come out again when Grammy was in the hospital and when Mom was spending a bunch of time with her at the end of her life. It was the unfinished project that they worked on together for years. You could say I inherited this multi-decade, multi-generational project. Gram was a starter and I’m a finisher so there have been a good number of multi-generational projects!
Back to the Christmas Tree skirt. We decided on a Christmas Tree skirt because Christmas is the time of year for something this ridiculous, and we are very excited for this year, specially because we were able to find the Best Solar Christmas Lights. Christmas Tree skirts also tend not to get dirty (fake trees, of course). It was also a project of manageable size… I can just imagine how this conversation would go with Gram if she was still around. I’d give her a hard time about taking on overly-ambitions projects and she would say “Well…” just like my Mom says now.
So we took these squares of damask tablecloth with lace on them and laid them out for optimum effect in our Christmas Tree Skirts.
We sewed them together and spent a lot of time ironing…Mom sewed and I ironed…. blach.
All that lace is so pretty!
Mom and I each got a square with a G on it. A bunch of the lace came from my Mom’s Dad’s Mother’s Aunts…so my Great Great Great Aunts, Ruth and Rose. The G stands for Griffith…I should figure out who that is. Uncle John? Fill me in..
Bella the beagle helped us out while we worked. That dog is a sleeper. She does nothing but sleep so we put her bed in there and she was content to watch instead of walking all over everything with dirty paws. If only Vector was that easy to out-wit!
The finished product:
Mom and I each made one. I can’t wait to get it out under the tree this year. It is such a big piece of what I remember about Grammy. It’s so nice to have something that so wholly reminds me of my Grandmother and Christmas is the perfect time to get it out.
I’ll be posting pictures of all the Christmas Decor so you’ll get to see the final product in place!
Sarah
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Loved your post. I laughed and cried. You said it all perfectly. Thanks for a great fun week
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Enjoyed reading your post. Loved how Bella helped. 🙂
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Christmas House Tour 2014 | DIY Sarah | Craft, Decor, Art, Garden, and Dessert
[…] gold ornaments and all of my pinecone ornaments. I really like pinecones. I also used my new Tree Skirt and put the tree on a box to make it about 6 inches taller. I highly recommend this little […]
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Vintage Ornament Wreath Tutorial
My mother made one of these years ago and I have always loved it. Â I made my own after Christmas last year and documented the process for you.
Materials –
18 in foam wreath form
about 10 feet of 4″ wide ribbon or strips of fabric
50 large ornaments
30 medium ornaments
50 small ornaments
15 “ornate” ornaments
Hot glue gun and hot glue
sheet of poster board
Step 1:
Cover your wreath form.
Step 2:
Set form on top of posterboard and mark approximately where you should cut it based on the size of your ornaments.
You want to be about a half inch outside the center-line if your ornament
Sketch your circles and cut out the poster-board in a donut shape. Dont’ worry too much about the even-ness or size. You’ll have a chance to touch it up later.
Step 3:
Glue the wreath to the poster board and arrange your first row of balls.
Step 4:
Start glueing the balls down using the hot glue gun. Put dabs of glue on the posterboard and on the wreath form.
I put the hanger sides of the ornaments facing in towards the form since I didn’t want them showing.
Step 5:
Once they are all glued down, you can adjust the cardboard. I don’t want to see any cardboard so I carefully flipped over the wreath and cut out the cardboard between the ornaments.
Then I repeated steps 4 and 5 on the inside of the wreath. I used smaller balls but use what you have.
Step 6:
Now that you have a nice secure base, it’s time to get glueing. I built up another row on the inside of the wreath and then started working my “ornate” ornaments into the top layers. There is no real direction here, just a few tips.
Tips:
- Work all over the wreath at once instead of just concentrating on one spot. You will get a more even wreath shape that way.
- Cover up your glue mistakes with small ornaments
- Use the little ornaments to cover up as much of the wreath form as possible.
- Use little ornaments to prop up your “ornate” ornaments to make them pop a bit more.
- Don’t try to force the ornaments into nooks…it’s a good way to break the ornaments.
- If you do break an ornament, try to cover up the breakage rather than trying to remove and replace it.
- Don’t be afraid to use your best ornaments. This is a spectacular piece and your best ornaments deserve the most attention.
- Don’t be afraid to sneak plastic ornaments into the mix. I’ve got a few and you wouldn’t even know.
- Buy yourself a decent glue-gun for Christmas. This One
is great.
There are a few more questions you should ask yourself before you start this project.
Where can I hang this baby?
I wouldn’t hang this on a door. Too much banging and bumping. It really shouldn’t be touched so over a mantle or somewhere over a piece of furniture is best, and if you want to get antique furniture you can go to stores to shopping for antiques online. You can also line the back with felt or a bit of batting to help pad it if you have a lot of banging doors or if it vibrates when the laundry is going.
How do you store it?
Best question ever. The answer is – with difficulty. It needs to be covered. I use a dry cleaning bag which is nice and see through so I know what it is. It really needs to be stored hanging or you’re going to have to find some kind of box to keep it in. Good luck with that but if you do find the perfect box, please please please leave a link in comments! Keeping the wreath hanging in a closet is good. You could keep it with the “fancy” clothes like your wedding dress and Tux since you’re usually clean and careful when you get those out. Hanging in a safe place in the attic is great as well. I’ve got spare closets in the guest rooms that are going to be my super fragile wreath storage area for now and I’m hoping to eventually get Stefan to build me a dedicated Ball Wreath Cabinet in the basement.
Where do you get all those ornaments?
Well, mine are leftover from my wedding but that’s not the normal scenario. Thrift stores are good but in all honesty, you’re probably best off scouring after-Christmas sales at all the normal ornament places: Home Depot, Michaels, Target, etc. If you can do all the solid ornaments new then you can try to get some neat vintage ones for the “ornate” ones. Antique shops usually have them for a few dollars a piece before Christmas but they are getting harder and harder to find. You should also ask your parents/grandparents. They kind of went out of vogue for a while since they are so much more fragile than the new ones and there is no way to get the years and years of dust off them which brings me to my next question…
How do you clean it?
Don’t. The vintage ornaments can NOT get wet or they will lose their pigment. Hit it with a cool blow dryer to get rid of dust, a feather duster might work, but don’t use any cleaners or even hit it too hard with a swiffer. It’s going to be a little dusty. Call it Christmas Fairy Dust and get over it.
I can’t wait to see all your renditions. Please leave links in the comments! I think I’m going to make another this year with all plastic ornaments. Dollar Tree sells those tubes of them and I think I can make it happen.
Merry Christmas!
Sarah
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Christmas House Tour 2014 | DIY Sarah | Craft, Decor, Art, Garden, and Dessert
[…] put the Ball Wreath over the mantle this year. I supported it on a vintage mirror since there isn’t a good hook […]
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Scrapbook Real Quick
I have a bunch of travel posts coming on the blog. It’s been a busy summer and I haven’t been blogging much. Stefan and I also decided to take some time off from the house and relax a bit so I haven’t had too many big reveals. One thing I did do, was throw together this scrapbook. I’d love to attempt to do a page per trip/event etc. I put this whole thing together over the course of a single movie. it’s made me realize that scrapbook can (and perhaps should) be quick and dirty.
I got the pictures printed at the local Walgreen’s a couple weeks ago.
I picked up a super cheapy scrapbook from ACMoore with a coupon (ACMoore is just another Michael’s in the Northeast). I think I paid $5 for it. I also have a couple of books of 12×12 scrapbook paper that I’ve picked up on super sale from here and there, which I want to convert to PDF after with a scanner and using software from sodapdf.com.
I don’t have a title page yet. I’ll do that eventually. the first spread is our wedding.
The next is OMG Bought a House! and Got a Cat since those go hand-in-hand… obviously.
In my quick 2.5 hours of working on this, I didn’t finish the Honeymoon Page, but I shoved the appropriate stuff in the sleeve for later. I got started on the Aug trip to Florida we took in the Summer of 2013. All the stickers here came from the dollar store.
Jump to Summer 2014 and we have a kitchen remodel page ( we really have come a long way!) and an incomplete North Carolina page.
Then I completed a spread on our trip to Acadia Maine.
I’d like to add a page on our Seattle Trip and then a page on thanksgiving, our Christmas Party, and Christmas. I figure 4-5 pages a year is a manageable way to keep a nice record of our adventures.
Tips for Keeping things Quick:
- document the highlights with a sharpie. Don’t be afraid to write on the pictures and the background. Your handwriting is a part of documenting the time when you wrote it so don’t worry about it too much.
- Use Washi Tape to tack in the pictures. I got mine at Dollar Tree. It’s awesome. Not super sticky, but it gets the job done and gives the pages a style.
- Add a couple stickers for fun. I also like to get prints made of clip-art to act as stickers. See the vintage Acadia Poster and the Tandem on the Acadia page. I get my stickers at the Dollar Tree mostly.
- If you mess up your text, just try again on a contrasting piece of paper and make it an accent. I did this several times on the Kitchen page.
- Use maps as backgrounds. I love this look and it becomes really easy to explain what you did when you can make notes on the map. To cut the map to size, I used a glue-stick to tack it to the back of the paper for the next page and then cut it out. It becomes really easy to make it perfectly square if you have a template.
- Only buy tone-on-tone paper. The fancy papers are neat but they are hard to work around. I highly recommend getting yourself a nice book of colorful solid or mostly-solid paper.
I’m afraid that’s all the advice I have for you. By nature, I’m not a perfectionist but a finisher. I like to have things done rather than perfect so this sloppy style appeals to me. I have a hard time taking on projects that aren’t feasible and I think I have managed to make this one very do-able.
Sarah
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You will be glad you did this. Maybe I could do something like this. I have friends who will scrapbook their past year over christmas break. Good job. Thanks for the inspiration.
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[…] tree topper which I’m super proud of. I wrote a blog post on it I’m so proud of it: here. The tree is covered in ornaments from our wedding. In addition to a traditional guest book, […]